Marine oil containment systems to date have been typically small scale measures initiated a period of time after a spill. Primarily, these systems use flexible, oil-resistant tubes attached to vertical curtains that must be towed to the spill site and then deployed in a circular fashion by small vessels in order to contain oil spills. This operation may require up to several days in order to complete the installation process. Once the oil is contained in small enclosures, it is usually recovered from the surface through a vacuum, absorption or adsorption process. Rigid boom systems have been used in a similar manner. These techniques have usually been applied following smaller spills and, unfortunately, are not effective in larger accidents, resulting in only a small amount of the spilled oil being captured. In major spills, these techniques are virtually useless. In fact, the offshore oil industry has noted in recent press announcements that it presently does not have the capability of containing very large oil spills, such as the disaster that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico during April of 2010.
Large oil spills are generally initiated by an explosion caused by natural gas escaping from the well and igniting at the surface during the drilling, completing or working over of an oil well. Explosions are not uncommon, since over the past few years there have been an average of about five serious explosions per year recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. Escaping gas may be the result of improper operating practices, equipment failure, inferior engineering design, and other similar incidents or combinations of these factors. In some cases, an explosion may damage the blowout preventer. The blowout preventer is intended as the device capable of stopping the resulting uncontrollable surge of gas-charged crude oil from the well. When the blowout preventer is damaged or otherwise fails, a major blowout generally follows. This can involve an out-of-control flow of oil and a fire accompanied by a large oil spill. Experience has shown that the fire is usually confined to a relatively small area around the well and does not spread very far because the extremely turbulent action of the escaping oil and gas combined with churning sea water. As such, complete burning of the oil or gas will not occur. Much of the gas then escapes into the atmosphere while the oil escapes the area of the well and becomes a large oil spill.
In the past, various patents have addressed the problems of oil spill containment. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,321,923, issued on May 30, 1967 to Smith et al., is an early patent dealing with a steerable self-powered floating structure. This self-powered, solid floating boom can be launched on the water surface and paid out from storage facilities and moved into position to perform rescue operations or to surround floating material. This floating structure has its own self-powered motive force supplied by separate onshore fluid pumping equipment. It can be steered through hydraulic forces from power nozzles by either remote radio control or by a manual control station directly connected to the movable boom. The boom is preferably formed entirely of a solid, lightweight plastic material with relatively stiff sections joined by relatively flexible sections in order to promote an accordion-folding of the boom. The system itself moves in a forward direction only since its power nozzles are fixed to the body of the device where steering is accomplished by varying the velocity of fluid passing through two power nozzles directed at an angle to each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,283,159, issued on Aug. 11, 1981 to Johnson et al., shows a protective shroud for offshore oil wells. A hollow shroud structure is of circular cross-section so as to surround an oil well. Servo-controlled valves, jets and pumps can locate the structure precisely in place. The shroud structure can be erected before or after drilling and can be moved and reused at different sites. The shroud structure can have a closed top or open top.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,834, issued on Feb. 15, 1983 to F. J. Grace, describes a portable offshore well installation apparatus. This apparatus has a pollution control curtain surrounding drilling equipment between the surface of the water and a well head. The curtain includes a submerged anchor ring with an axially extendable water-impermeable sleeve secured at its lower end to the top of the anchor ring. A float ring is secured to the upper end of the extendable sleeve. A plurality of longitudinally-spaced buoyant rings are attached at suitable intervals about the periphery of the sleeve to provide a uniform axial extension of the sleeve. A fillable retriever ring is secured to a lower portion of the anchor ring to facilitate installation and removal of the curtain from the well site when the retriever ring is filled with a buoyant substance.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,132, issued on Dec. 2, 1986 to S. J. Allen, teaches an oil containment barge assembly for containing an oil spill floating on a body of water. A plurality of barges are attached in end-to-end relationship around the spill. The open spaces between the barges are sealed by oil-impervious curtains suspended from the adjacent barges. A clamp means serves to hold the opposite end portions of the curtains flush against the corresponding inner sidewall surfaces of the adjacent barges.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,164, issued on Nov. 19, 1991 to G. Tomosy, shows a spill containment device for a ship that includes a pouch which is mounted on the outer, uppermost hull section. The pouch completely encircles the hull. A flexible fluid-impervious skirt is affixed along one edge to the interior of the pouch. The skirt is folded and stored within the pouch. When activated, the pouch is caused to fully open about its bottom by a deployment mechanism. The skirt is able to drop and depend down from the hull into the water.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,326,354, issued on Feb. 5, 2008 to R. C. Ferreira, describes an active barrier used to contain and collect polluting material floating over bodies of water. There is a plurality of containment modules which are interlinked to form the active barrier. Each containment module is provided with collecting tubes into which impeller modules displace in a predetermined direction. The displacement of the impeller modules causes a pumping effect of passing the polluted water into the collecting tubes.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,608,316 granted to James E. Manuel on Sep. 28, 1971 describes two pluralities of buoyancy chambers held together by a trough-like chamber containing a spring where the chamber serves a barrier skirt. The device is launched by vessels to encompass the spill area.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,839,870 published on Oct. 8, 1974 to Margaret M. Ryan provides a metallic retainer skirt made up of metal plates welded together on site. The metallic skirt retainer is held buoyant at the surface and in a vertical orientation by floatation pontoons. The skirt is anchored to the ocean floor by chains. The system may be lowered or raised for passage by visiting vessels through a series of air supply and water supply hoses connected to the pontoons and to the visiting vessel to submerge or surface the metallic retainer skirt where air and water are supplied by the visiting vessel.